Tony Milne’s summary

Tony Milne has a summary of how the political term to date has gone for the parties in Parliament. Worth a read as reasonably fair, even though I’d disagree on a couple of points.

I note Tony overlooked rating the Progressive Party. I think this speaks for itself.

I also think he is cocooned from reality when he says “Winston perceived to be doing a good job as foreign minister.”

Everyday it becomes obvious that Phil Goff is still doing the job. He’s in Timor with the Australian Foreign Minister. He’s in the US with high level delegations.

Take just this week. On Monday we read that Phil Goff was communicating to Buckingham Palace over the sale of gifts to Princess Margaret. This is 100% foreign minister territory.

Labour have quite artfully used his role as trade and defence minister to justify Goff doing almost everything he did as foreign minister. Winston gets the title, the name on press releases, and lots of trips to the Pacific. Goff meanwhile chairs the Cabinet Foreign Affairs Committee.

As I have said before, Peters is capable of doing a reasonable job, but to date this is rarely on display. Whenever anything of importance is involved they still send Goff in.